Organ Trafficking in Egypt – Exploitation in Focus: Report

Desperate to reach Europe, migrants from Africa are travelling to Egypt and selling body parts to pay for their passage, according to a Guardian report.

Wearing
a baseball hat and smoking a shisha pipe in a cafe in Cairo, Dawitt tells me he
is 19, but looks years younger. He explains that he escaped Eritrea aged 13 to
avoid forced, indefinite conscription into military service.

His
family helped him pay smugglers to travel via Sudan to Egypt. Struggling with
debt and desperate to make the sea crossing to Europe, he looked in vain for
regular work. Then he met a Sudanese man who suggested a “safe and easy way” to
raise the cash – selling a kidney.

“I thought it would be a good way of getting
money fast and travelling to Europe,” says Dawitt. “I was worried, but he
convinced me that it is a very easy operation and you can live a normal life
with one kidney. It was a lot of money. How [could] I say no to $5,000 when I
have nothing and my family need help?”

Dawitt
was given blood and urine tests, then taken for surgery.

“We
drove all night to get to the hospital. I remember walking downstairs and
waiting to speak with the doctor. Then I entered a room where I was asked to
change my clothes and lie down on the bed. All I remember after that was waking
up and feeling a sharp pain in my side. I started shouting and cursing until
the broker came to take me back to the apartment.”

Dawitt’s
story is more common than statistics suggest. According to a 2018 report, the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has collected data on 700 incidents of
organ trafficking, primarily from north Africa and the Middle East. Yet these
figures are conservative, at best. The true scale of the industry is difficult
to assess, as the majority of cases go unreported, with victims reluctant to
come forward for fear of deportation, arrest or shame.

The
trade appears to be flourishing in Egypt, bolstered by an EU-funded clampdown
on refugees by security forces. There, the hostile environment created by the
arbitrary detention of migrants, and the hike in smugglers’ fees, is creating a
perfect opportunity for unscrupulous organ brokers who prey on those desperate
to raise funds to cross the Mediterranean.

After
surgery, Dawitt was taken by his broker, Ali, to an apartment in the
Mohandessin district of Giza to convalesce. He was introduced to an Eritrean,
Isaac, who promised to bring him to Damietta, where a fishing boat would take
him to Sicily. The broker encouraged Dawitt to accept his offer, claiming he
would use the money he owed Dawitt for his passage.

“I
felt very comfortable with [Isaac] after talking. He was Eritrean, and he
didn’t look like a thief. He told me that he smuggles hundreds of people every
month and that he doesn’t need the money. He made me feel like he was the one
doing me the favour. He gave me his number and told me to call him when I was
ready.”

Dawitt
says he spent a further two weeks at the apartment recovering from the surgery.
Feeling his strength return, he called Isaac to confirm travel arrangements.
But the phone line was inactive, and Ali was nowhere to be found. Dawitt is
convinced that Ali used the money to make his own way to Europe. When he
reported the incident to the police he was threatened with deportation.

Anecdotal
evidence suggests organ brokers are increasingly approaching migrants with the
offer of a passage to Europe in exchange for donating an organ. The irony is
that the trade is being driven by the broad EU policy to “externalise borders”
by increasing the capacity of African states such as Libya, Egypt and Sudan to
manage migration, given a boost by the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.

Figures
released by the European Commission in 2018 indicate that fewer people are now
escaping to Europe via the north Egyptian coast. Yet while the number of
migrants, asylum seekers and refugees crossing Egypt’s central Mediterranean
route has decreased, the de facto closing of borders has pushed people to
further extremes, increasing the hold of criminal networks. Intent on leaving
Egypt by any means, migrants are being targeted for organ sale.

On
a street near Tahrir Square, Ibrahim waits outside a cafe. He waves me over,
gesturing to a chair. His role, he says, is to recruit migrants as part of a
smuggling network operating along the north Egyptian coast.

“People
come to me to organise their transport and to make the payment,” he says. “I
confirm the payment with the boss, and then I bring people from Cairo to
Alexandria. They stay in warehouses on chicken farms and wait there until the
time is ready to go to sea.”

In
response to a government crackdown, smugglers operating out of Egypt and Libya
have raised fees from $1,500 to $3,500 (£1,160 to £2,710) to maintain profits.
Unable to finance travel, people smugglers are referring migrants to organ
brokers in Cairo to raise the necessary capital.

“People
can pay less than the asking price [of $3,500] but if you do this, you’re like
a third-class passenger,” he advises. “These ones can end up in detention
centres where they will only be released if they agree to work or sell their
bodies for sex.”

Ibrahim
shifts in his seat uncomfortably, reaching for a cigarette. He inhales slowly,
taking his time to consider what he wants to say next.

“There
are some people who only care about getting the money. They don’t care if you
arrive at your destination or end up dying at sea. This is why I advise people
to make the payment in advance, even if that means selling a kidney.”

Asha, a woman from Sudan, shows the scar from
the operation she says she was coerced into in Cairo.

Facebook
Twitter Pinterest Asha, a woman from
Sudan, shows the scar from the operation she says she was coerced into in
Cairo.

Ibrahim
draws my attention to bullet holes over the door frame, a relic of the
revolution when shots were fired at protesters during demonstrations on 25
January 2011. He knows that what he is doing is illegal but suggests the
government is at fault. “I do not see my work as bad because I am helping
people change their life for the better.”

A
law banning organ sales was introduced in 2010 but has pushed the trade further
underground. Asha, from Sudan, explains how she was recruited in Khartoum and
taken to Cairo. “They said they would find me work and then they would take me
to Italy. I did not trust these men, but it was impossible for me to stay in
Khartoum. My children were sick from not eating. So, I listened to them.”

When
she arrived in Cairo, Asha was told that she would not be going to Europe.
Instead she would be “donating” her kidney. She was promised $2,000 if she
complied. If not, the men said, they would take her kidney by force. Asha was
taken by taxi to a nondescript apartment in Alexandria.

“I
know it was Alexandria because I could see the ocean from the taxi. Then I was
in a room with medical equipment, but this is all I can tell you. They locked
me in the room and told me to think of my children.”

After
surgery, Asha reported one of the brokers to the police. He was arrested and
held for 30 days, then released without charge. In July 2018, a statement from
the Egyptian Health Ministry announced that 37 people had been found guilty by
an Egyptian court on charges related to illicit trading in human organs. There
was no mention of the victims.

A
spokesman from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “Egyptian
authorities continue to vigilantly pursue, investigate and bring to justice any
such crimes of organ trade in accordance with the stringent provisions of the
criminal law. Furthermore, this hideous illegal trade has never been condoned
by the Egyptian government and law enforcement authorities. We will continue to
combat such crimes and bring those engaged in the organ trade to justice, while
protecting Egyptian citizens as well as our host refugee and migrant
community.”

Asha
lives in fear for her life, subjected to threats and intimidation by the broker
and his associates. She says she was told that if she did not withdraw her
statement, her children would bear the consequences.

“I
am worried about what will happen to my children. I am worried they will come
for their organs too.”

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